Electrolux Kelvinator Ltd, the Indian arm of the $2 billion Swedish white goods giant, AB Electrolux, has decided to trim flab by announcing an attractive voluntary retirement scheme (VRS) for its employees.
The VRS will be offered to employees in all the three refrigerator manufacturing facilities of Electrolux Kelvinator situated at Warora (Maharashtra), Shahjahanpur (Rajasthan) and Nandalur (Andhra Pradesh).
The company also has a washing machine manufacturing unit at Butibori. However, the unit has been excluded from the VRS offer for the moment.
Electrolux Kelvinator has a total employee strength of around 3,000. The company hopes to reduce its workforce by around 25-30 per cent through the VRS route.
Though details of the VRS are proposed to be announced on January 15, company sources said they expect it to be at par with the best in the industry.
Electrolux, which formally entered India in 1960, made its presence felt when it acquired a 40 per cent stake in Eureka Forbes Ltd in 1982.
It stepped into the refrigerator manufacturing business by acquiring the Shahjahanpur -based facility of Maharaja International Ltd in 1995, when the market for refrigerators was on the rise.
The steady growth in demand saw Electrolux Kelvinator spread out and open/acquire facilities in Shahjahanpur, Gurgaon, Warora, Nandlur and Sanatnagar (Hyderabad).
Company sources said when the company acquired the Warora plant from Voltas in 1998, the market was growing at a rate of 20 per cent.
However, the demand fell subsequently. As a result, the industry grew only eight per cent in 1999, while in 2000 it was minus three per cent. The industry bottomed out in 2001, registering a 11 per cent fall in growth.
